High court to tackle Native American adoption dispute

Source: CNN

A custody battle involving the "best interests" of a 3-year-old Cherokee girl will be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, an issue spanning the rights of adoptive parents and the desire to preserve Native American families within tribes.

The justices announced Friday they will hear an appeal from Matt and Melanie Capobianco, who legally adopted little Veronica in 2009, shortly after the birth mother agreed to give up the child. Oral arguments in the case will likely be heard in April with a ruling by late June.

The South Carolina Supreme Court in July ruled for the biological father, who had sought custody shortly after the child's birth. He is a registered member of the Cherokee Nation and is raising the child in Oklahoma.

Dusten Brown had earlier signed a legal document agreeing to put the girl up for adoption, but his attorneys say the father did not understand the extent of the waiver, and that the birth mother misrepresented the child's American Indian heritage to social service workers when the adoption was finalized.

incidentally, we have friends who fought this law to the USSC and won - something having to do with the way their home state (LA) is under napoleonic code and, quirkily, they got their daughter (who'd been basically handed to them by her mom. The family lived on a rez in MN and was hyperdysfunctional. Very sad. bleak life up there.) The tribe fought for custody and it's near impossible to override their claims but our friends kept their daughter.

3. Same thing happened to a woman we knew, who lost her adopted little girl.

She was our daughter's kindergarten teacher, a wonderful mother who loved the little girl she adopted very much. But after a few months the mother, who was Native American, changed her mind and they had to give her up. Heartbreaking.